YHBHS Interview

Joshua Abelow, pt 2
YHBHS Interview

The best time to paint in the day is?

I almost never get out of bed before noon (unemployment does that to you...). I like painting in the late afternoon or evening after a good cup of coffee. Sometimes I work very late at night.

"The Genius," 2010,
pencil on paper, 30 x 22 inches




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"From your description, and from what I know of your previous work and you [sic] ability; the work you are doing sounds very good “Drawing-clean-clear but crazy like machines, larger and bolder… real nonsense.” That sounds fine, wonderful – real nonsense. Do more. More nonsensical, more crazy, more machines, more breasts, penises, cunts, whatever – make them abound with nonsense.

Try and tickle something inside you, your “weird humor.” You belong in the most secret part of you. Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you – draw & paint your fear and anxiety. And stop worrying about big, deep things such as “to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistant [sic] approach to even some impossible end or even an imagined end”

You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!"



A letter to Eva Hesse from Sol Lewitt..




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Inspired by?

First and foremost, my friends and family. My mother is an amazing woman. I'm not sure I could have even attempted to be an artist without her support. As far as artistic influences are concerned there are so, so many.

But a few that come to mind off the top of my head are: Paul Feeley. Peter Saul. R Crumb. Otto Muehl. I love the Beat poets, writers, and artists. Charles Bukoswki's novels and poems.

Charles Bukowski, collection of poems

I especially like You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense. Richard Brautigan. One of my favorite books Pan by Knut Hamsun. I like anybody who isn't afraid to laugh. Sol LeWitt's letter (from 1965) to Eva Hesse is a great read... Richard Bosman's fucked up paintings and prints from the 80's inspire me. The Ken Price/Josef Albers show at Brooke Alexander on Wooster St. is really good. Paul McCarthy's "PAINTER."

Nite or morning person?

I require an abnormal amount of sleep. If I can, I like to sleep as much as 12 hours a night, which basically means I sleep through a lot of days. Sometimes I start my day at 3 in the afternoon and end up working very late at night. I make my best work when I'm well fed and well rested.

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Joshua Abelow,
pt 2 YHBHS Interview



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when light becomes a room

James Turrell

The Wolfsburg Project
Bridget's Bardo

"Light is probably the most basic,
the most elementary thing in existence."











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YHBHS Interview: Joshua Abelow

Joshua Abelow
Interview pt 1.

"I don't quite understand it,
but I think there is something antagonistic about it -
like the drawings are undermining the paintings."

"Why? Why? Why?," 2010,
pencil on paper, 22 x 30 inches


















oil on burlap, 2010



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ab·surd (ab sʉrd′, -zʉrd′; əb-), adjective
so clearly untrue or unreasonable as to be laughable or ridiculous

"The Absurd", in philosophy, refers to the clash between the human tendency to seek inherent meaning and the human inability to find any. In this context "absurd" does not mean "logically impossible," but rather "humanly impossible." The universe and the human mind do not each separately cause the Absurd, but rather, the Absurd arises by the contradictory reality caused by the confrontation of both, simultaneously.

formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content. In visual art, formalism is a concept that posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained within the work of art.

"Self-Portrait with Satan,"
2010, pencil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

Whats happening in Vermont? Where do you call home at the moment?

JA:I'm doing a six week painting residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT. The Center is artist run, which gives this place a homey feeling. My studio is big. I have a view of a river. I take long walks and read a lot. Today I finished a wonderful book by Robert Walser called, The Assistant.

In the studio, I'm working on a series of self-portrait drawings that are humorously self-critical, aiming to question or mock the role of the artist. I made two today that have Satan popping out of my ass.

A woman here told me she was going to call my mom when she saw some of them. They might become studies for future paintings. I'm also making geometric oil paintings on burlap. These burlap paintings allow for a very systematized exploration of color.

There's a relationship between the paintings and the drawings that is odd and interesting to me. I don't quite understand it, but I think there is something antagonistic about it - like the drawings are undermining the paintings.





















JA: For the past two years or so I've been traveling around the United States and abroad. I lived in Berlin for most of 2008. I read eleven Henry Miller novels in the bathtub and made a lot of small abstract paintings there. I spent a lot of time alone - it was very peaceful.

Then I did a six-week painting residency at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. For the last six months I've been living in my hometown outside Baltimore, Maryland, but I'm hoping to join my sister in New York at some point in the not too distant future to make some things happen...







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Funny jokes to share? I personally love to laugh.

JA: There's a Richard Prince Joke Painting that always makes me laugh. It's called "Oedipus-Schmedipus." And John Baldessari's text paintings from the late 60's are also very funny.

"Oedipus Schmedipus,"
1994, Richard Prince

2 distinct cases of laughing oneself to death, found on Wikipedia..

On 24 March 1975, Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, featuring a kilt-clad Scotsman battling a vicious black pudding with his bagpipes. After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died from heart failure. His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments of life so pleasant.

In 1989, a Danish audiologist, Ole Bentzen, died laughing while watching A Fish Called Wanda. His heart was estimated to have beaten at between 250 and 500 beats per minute, before he succumbed to cardiac arrest.

"EVERYTHING IS PURGED FROM THIS PAINTING
BUT ART,NO IDEAS HAVE ENTERED THIS WORK,"
1966 - 1968, John Baldessari

joshua abelow.
more to come.....
pt 2.

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A possible yellow.

2 paintings
and an
interior shot.

















































2 paintings
and an
interior shot.


1. george morrison, painting.
2. unknown interior.
3. joshua abelow. go here! full interview this week on YHBHS.





George Morrison has the distinction of being the only Native American artist that has been recognized as an American artist. He abstract style was nurtured at the Student Art League in New York City, where he was a participant during the 1940s. Although he has chosen to work in an abstract style, he has drawn from his childhood memories of growing up on the northern banks of Lake Superior. Often his work references the horizon line, a powerful connection to the land, the water and the sky.

The horizon line as a recurring theme provides structure and identity to his work and has become his signature.








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Gaetano Pesce!

Gaetano Pesce gives a talk at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
And his retropsective opens in Los Angeles the same evening!

Just found out that Gaetano Pesce is giving a lecture at the Hammer Museum next week!
And the opening of a retrospective of his work at the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles.

Anyone going, drop me an email.....?

The first retrospective in the Western United States of architect, artist, designer Gaetano Pesce celebrates the maestro of art-design and his years of experimenting and creating works with polyurethane foam, resin, and plastics for such A-list companies as Cassina, B&B Italia and Meritalia.

Works on display include prototypes, production models, video, and audio produced throughout Pesce's 40-year career.

Gaetano Pesce
Co-presented with Istituto Italiano di Cultura.


Internationally renowned architect and designer Gaetano Pesce was born in 1939 in La Spezia, Italy, and studied architecture at the University of Venice. He has designed for companies such as Cassina, B & B Italia, Bernini, and Knoll International. His architectural work includes the Organic Building of Osaka, the Children’s House for Parc de la Villette, the Gallery Mourmons in Belgium, and the office for the New York advertising of agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. Pesce received the prestigious Chrysler Award for Innovation and Design in 1993 and the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Lawrence J. Israel Prize in 2009.







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Summer Reading.

Memories
of a
Collector

A dedicated collector and advocate of contemporary art since the late 1940s, Giuseppe Panza has played a fundamental role in the artistic culture of his time, introducing American phenomena such as Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Pop Art, Environmental Art, and Conceptualism to the museums of Europe. Now, in a brilliant response to everyone’s primary question about Modern Art—“What does it mean?”—Panza shares philosophical insights and personal reflections that bridge a half-century of discovering new artists and movements.

Panza was among the first to buy the works of Rothko, Kline, Lichtenstein, and many of the other major figures of post-WWII art, watching as their works skyrocketed in monetary value as well as historic importance. He pursued collecting with undiminished enthusiasm through the 1980s and 1990s, all the while searching for the best venues in which to display his latest acquisitions. Sections of his private collection were exhibited by and acquired into major collections, particularly the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim in New York. Among his signature innovations was the juxtaposition of contemporary art with historic settings—Baroque palaces, ancient European public buildings, his own eighteenth-century villa—in order to create unexpected and stimulating dialogs between the architectural context and the work of art.

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Portrait of a Man

Portrait of a Man
pt. 23

the decorated back.
more portraits here...
















































































Portrait of a Man
pt. 23

the decorated back.
more portraits here...



1. Christopher Orr, painting
2. Todd Alexander Romano Interiors here..
3. Robert Mapplethorpe, photograhp
4. Unknown, decorated back

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Pride

bruce
nauman,
1972














happy pride to my
brothers and sisters
in new york!





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collections.










More images from a recent a visit
to the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, California.









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Johnston Marklee Architects

black
turns
to
white.

The entry way into Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City.
Solid Black Shiny Mass....It's simply fantastic, and massive.

Since its founding in 1998 Johnston Marklee's diverse portfolio has been unified by a conceptual approach to each project. Rather than adhere to a signature style, the intricate relations between design and building technology are explored to create unique and vital works of architecture. JML's innovative design process includes frequent collaborations with contemporary artists, writers, photographers and sculptors, bringing multiple layers of expertise to each project.











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"The possible beauty of a white lie."

the
garage.

Thomas Steinert
Garage, 1986, print...

The other nite, late into the evening, a younger gentleman and I were discussing the difference between authenticity, make believe, and flat out delusions. The borders, and the intersection of "our truths." The thoughts we believe/feel, that we are capable of manifesting, and those that we will never achieve due to our inability to dream.

The possible beauty of a white lie.

The intoxicating energy of building your own truths from ground up. fake columns and all.

Thomas Steinert's photograph from 1986, titled, "Garage" pretty much sums up the thoughts and ideas of that conversation of the other nite with the younger gentleman. Take a look at Steinert's photographs that chronicle Germany before communism crumbled. Or just meet me in the garage.









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Arshile Gorky

the last
painting
1948

The Last Painting, 1948
Oil on canvas

A short time after his studio burned, Gorky underwent a painful operation for rectal cancer. In June 1948, he was badly injured in an automobile accident which temporarily paralyzed his painting arm. Alarmed at Gorky’s increasing melancholia, his wife took their two children to safety, leaving him in a suicidal spiral that ended with the tormented artist hanging himself on July 21, 1948.

As he prepared to take his own life, Gorky wrote in chalk on a wooden crate, “Goodbye My Beloveds.” The word “beloved” was well chosen. Gorky was a man and an artist who evoked love in his work and in his life. Willem de Kooning, his great friend, called him “Sweet Arshile.”

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Starting in 1946, however, Gorky had a run of bad luck: a year’s worth of paintings and drawings were destroyed in a fire; an operation for cancer forced him to use a colostomy bag; his wife had an affair with his best friend; he even broke his neck in a car crash, temporarily paralysing his painting arm. Gorky became horribly depressed. In the summer of 1948, he hanged himself in a shed.







all text taken from here
and here...

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Arshile Gorky

a sandwich
and some
painting.

I got called into jury duty today.
Museums are free to downtown Los Angeles jurors...
Off to MOCA for the new retrospective during my lunch break!
I know so little about Arshile Gorky, excited to see this show.




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Arshile Gorky (b. c.1902, Khorkom, Armenia; d. 1948 Sherman, Conn.)
was a seminal figure in the movement toward abstraction that transformed American art in the middle of the 20th century. Born in an Armenian village on the eastern border of Ottoman Turkey, Gorky was a first-hand witness to the Turkish government's Armenian Genocide of 1915, which led the artist’s family and thousands of others to flee.

In 1920, Gorky emigrated to the United States and eventually settled in New York, where he became a largely self-taught artist. At a time when the American avant-garde privileged originality over traditional working methods, Gorky was a nonconformist who developed his personal vocabulary through a series of intensive apprenticeships to the styles of other artists, including Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, and Joan Miro, before developing his own unique and deeply influential visual language in the early 1940s.

MOCA GRAND AVENUE
250 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90012



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John Baldessari (for the phone)

"When someone completes their own still life using In Still Life 2001-2010 it becomes their own artwork," says artist John Baldessari.
"It's not mine. It's theirs. Still lifes are about the fleeting things in life...










THE ORIGINAL IN STILL LIFE
John Baldessari created the first In Still Life in 2001 for an exhibition at LACMA. He hung Abraham van Beyeren's Banquet Still Life on the wall next to an empty frame and invited exhibition visitors to digitally rearrange or remove the 38 objects in the original 17th-century Dutch painting, thus creating a new still life of their own. Visitors were encouraged to print out their still lifes and hang them in the room or take them home. When someone completed a still life using In Still Life, it became his or her own artwork, not John Baldessari's or Abraham van Beyeren's artwork.









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John
Baldessari
here...

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It's official!

a chapter
ends
another
one opens!

To all those (I'm sorry!) who heard me talking endlessly
about selling my home, the endless showings, and the crazy bank delays.
It's finally over. Its official! A new chapter of my life is beginning, and
I'm on a total adrenaline rush today.

the fireplace, 1908, original tile, and floors.

--- --- --- --- ---

The fireplace of the home I used to own.
A wonderful 1908 house that I restored for the past 8 years here in Los Angeles.

Repeat... I used to own!
It's sold to an amazing new owner.








the kitchen corner cabinet...
ugh, want to fill these up with concrete!
and pretend i had doris salcedo over for tea...









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Scott Burton

taken from NY TIMES,
an obituary by Roberta Smith.
Jan 1, 1990.

Scott Burton, an American sculptor whose work balanced stubbornly and elegantly between art and furniture while evolving into a new kind of public sculpture,
died of AIDS on Friday at Cabrini Medical Center in New York City.

He was 50 years old and lived in Manhattan.

By the end of his life, Mr. Burton's simple yet eye-catching benches, stools and chairs, cut from smooth and sometimes jagged pieces of granite, could often be found with people sitting on them in several North American cities, including Seattle, Cincinnati, New York City, Portland, Ore., and Toronto.

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Mr. Burton, a small, wiry man known for his erudition, verbal precision and explosive laugh, worked as a critic and an editor for Art News and Art in America before becoming a full-time artist. He emerged in the late 1960's and early 70's as part of an artistic generation that came of age in the shadow of Minimalism.

Uncertain that his passion for furniture and design could ever lead to an artistic career, he turned to literature, obtaining an B.A. from Columbia in 1962 and an M.A. from New York University in 1963. By the mid-60's he was working regularly as a freelance critic for Art News, then under the editorship of Thomas B. Hess.

Elizabeth C. Baker, the editor of Art in America and formerly the editor of Art News, worked with Mr. Burton at both publications. ''As a critic his enthusiasms were passionate, his dislikes were categorical,'' she said. ''He wrote as he would later cut granite, with high style, great clarity of form and a very sharp edge.''

At the end of his life, Mr. Burton's interests in dissolving the boundary between art and design took him into the curatorial realm. Last spring, at the invitation of Kirk Varnedoe, the director of the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, he organized an exhibition of Brancusi's works at the museum.

In it, some of Brancusi's bases were exhibited on their own, as sculptures in their own right, a treatment that outraged some critics, while impressing others.






















The art historian Robert Rosenblum said of him yesterday: ''Scott was as singular and unique as a person as he was as an artist. His fiercely laconic work destroyed the boundaries between furniture and sculpture, between private delectation and public use and radically altered the way we see many 20th-century masters, including Gerrit Rietveld and Brancusi.''











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L I G H T

new work: Heather Carson
light/ALBERS "

at ACE Gallery,
Los Angeles

“I have sought to createlight as a visceral, active presence that has its own logic and structure, co-existing with the action – often in conflict – not there simply to better “see” what is happening onstage.”"

For Carson, each light piece is not a direct reference to an individual Albers painting but to the oeuvre at large. Albers carefully noted on the reverse side the type and shades of color that he used as a record of the works specific formal experiment. Mirroring the foregrounding of the electrical systems in her work, bringing the 'background' information forward rather than hiding it, each piece lists the colors of the fluorescent tubes in the title, i.e. light/ALBERS: Cool White/DESIGN 50/ADV850, using the manufacturers name for the color temperature of the tube. Albers himself used different types of fluorescent lighting in his studio (some that cast warm tones, and some cool tones) that allowed him to assess the color interactions in different lighting environments.














Historically, fluorescent works have tended to use the fixture itself as the carrier of the electrical wires. In the new Light Action wall sculptures on view, the heavy industrial aesthetic of her armatures and their joints may seem unfamiliar as part of an artwork. But Carson has developed a highly refined aesthetic over the years encompassing conduit and the use of indoor and outdoor electrical fittings.

The use of aluminum pipe and Speed-Rail enables her to place lights in space; adjacent to each other but maintaining their individual structural integrity.







new work: Heather Carson
light/ALBERS "

at ACE Gallery,
Los Angeles









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no sign, no signal

new york:
Alexander May

curated by
Sarah Walzer
July 1 7-10.

































new york:
Alexander May

curated by
Sarah Walzer
July 1 7-10.

45 Canal Street, New York



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when sculptures become cabinets

1966
and 1968

when sculptures
become cabinets

"a wall for apricots"

"rolling stones"

when sculptures become cabinets.
two masters working in parallel voids.

1. Anne Truitt, 1968, a wall for apricots.
2. Ettore Sottsass, Cabinet," rolling stones" 1966










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Radical Potential In Absolute Illumination.

"In 1912, Scheerbart published The Light Club of Batavia, a Novelle about the formation of a club dedicated to building a spa for bathing—not in water, but in light—at the bottom of an abandoned mineshaft.

Translated here into English for the first time, this rare story serves as a point of departure for Josiah McElheny, who, with an esteemed group of collaborators, offers a fascinating array of responses to this enigmatic work."

The Light Club: On Paul Scheerbart's
"The Light Club of Batavia"
by Josiah Mcelheny, here...










"the universe is far too rich and complex to be comprehended by reason alone.
Only naive wonder — the basis of the sublime —
could promote the development of higher forms of understanding."



-Paul Scheerbart

Paul Karl Wilhelm Scheerbart (8 January 1863 in Danzig – 15 October 1915 in Berlin) was an author of fantastic literature and drawings.

He was also published under the pseudonym Kuno Küfer and is best known for the book Glasarchitektur (1914). Scheerbart's fantasty essays about glass architecture influenced architects at that time, including the young Bruno Taut.


Scheerbart published a long succession of fantasy novels, articles, and poems between 1889 and his death in 1915, in which he insisted that the universe is far too rich and complex to be comprehended by reason alone. Only naive wonder — the basis of the sublime — could promote the development of higher forms of understanding."















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Lucio Fontana

lucio
fontana

the red works.
2 sightings.





























2nd image, Lucio Fontana above the sidetable. Perfect. (via Tom Scheerer Interiors, here..) And in the first image, at Marianne Boesky's new gallery on 118 East 64th Street, New York..





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House of Light.

House of Light.
Olson Kundig Architects

I'm hoping to get an invite very soon.....

"As a counterpoint to the solid outdoor structure,
a spine-like band of light runs the length of the home
culminating in a monumental installation by artist James Turrell."

House of Light.
Olson Kundig Architects

Landscape, light and art are elements which contribute to the natural flow of the home’s design. Reflecting an interaction with the natural surrounding, the design becomes part of the landscape facilitating movement inside and out. Already located on the property is a 130-foot long solid-steel sculpture by Richard Serra. As a counterpoint to the solid outdoor structure, a spine-like band of light runs the length of the home culminating in a monumental installation by artist James Turrell. The home is a place to display art and entertain groups of art lovers. Also incorporated into its design are “green” aspects—the roof is planted with buffalo grass and trellises with hanging vines further integrate the home with the lush garden setting.















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